Astronauts aboard the International Space Station had an unplanned day off from science work and daily maintenance Wednesday while NASA scrambled to assess if the outpost’s cooling system was leaking toxic ammonia.
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Instead of unpacking the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship that arrived on Monday and setting up new experiments, including a fruit fly laboratory intended to study immune system changes, the station commander and two flights engineers bunkered up with their three Russian crewmates in the Russia part of the orbital outpost.
Alarm Sends Astronauts to Shelter at Space Station
NASA astronauts Butch Willmore and Terry Virts and Italy’s Samantha Cristoforetti were about two hours into their workday when an alarm sounded, indicating the water level in one of the station’s two cooling loops was increasing, a possible sign of an ammonia leak.
The trio put on masks, headed to the Russian part of the station and sealed the hatch to make sure any contamination, if it existed, didn’t spread.
The Russians scrambled to be good hosts, finding food containers for the evacuees and skipping daily exercise so as not to overload the air with carbon dioxide.
The Russian side of the station has enough food and air scrubbers to support all six crewmembers for eight days, or longer, said NASA spokesman Rob Navias.
“While it’s inconvenient for the crew to be in the Russian segment it’s certainly not unhealthy for them,” said space station program manager Mike Suffredini.
Wednesday’s evacuation turned out to last a relatively short 11 hours, time ground controllers needed to figure out that a balky computer card was responsible for the false readings, which tricked the station’s software into sounding the alarm.
The crew was cleared to the return to the U.S. part of the station just after 3 p.m. EST.
“Things are fine,” said NASA associate administrator Bill Gerstenmaier. “They’ll get a good night’s sleep tonight.”
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